If you were thinking of reporting the minimal amount of MIPS data to avoid a payment reduction, you might want to think again.

It has been well known that CMS publishes comparative physician data on their website (data.medicare.gov). This data in in an excel format and allows you to compare your utilization with your peers.

You MIPS data is similar to a report card and CMS will make this data available to the public on the following sites, Physician Compare, Yelp, Consumer reports and Google. The database will include individual physician names.

Publishing this data can impact the physician in a number of ways:

Physicians looking to join new groups or selling their practice will more than likely have their scores reviewed

Physicians who are providing excellent quality of care for their patients but elect to report only the minimum amount of data will have a lower score available to the public. This could potentially reduce the number of new patients to the practice.

It is important to keep in mind unreported measures and categories can be seen as poor performance by those who are seeking the physician’s score.